Great Business Names, real or otherwise.

I have always been intrigued by some of the wacky names self-employed people cook up for their businesses and have thought ‘hmm, I wish I had a trade where I could use a wacky name too!’.

If I were a baker, my bakery would probably be called ‘Nice Buns’. I could get promotional material made up (calico bags for bread etc) with the slogan “I’ve got Nice Buns” emblazoned on it.

About the only real business I have dealt with that has an interesting name is a computer shop called ‘That Computer Bloke’. For you US-centric Merkin types out there, It’s basically the Aussie equivalent to a shop called ‘That Computer Guy’. Whenever anyone asks me where I got my PC from, I tell them I got it from ‘That Computer Bloke’ and the usual response I get is ‘what computer bloke?’. Classic stuff.

My father assures me that Jack Doff Real Estate existed in Sydney about thirty years ago.

My nominees are La Cucuracha Mexican restaurants in Minnesota and Bob Boob Realtors in Central Pennsylvania.

They both exist, I swear.

Robin

One of my friends had a pair of shorts with “The best buns in the business!” screen-printed across her butt. I think it was for Ed DeBeverick’s (Chicago restaurant - do they have them in other places too?), although it could be from somewhere else.

Hartford, CT - The Foo King Kitchen Chinese Restaurant. I love it.

An actual utilities company in El Paso, Texas, 15 years ago:

El Paso Gas.

Well, my favorite real one is the Flatt Tire Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Simpsons can always be relied on to provide top-notch business names. I think my favorite has to be the Turn Your Head and Coiff salon.

BTW, MsRobyn, I’ll back up La Cucuracha for you. I’ve never eaten there (totally burnt out on Mexican food), but the name is hilarious now matter how you look at it.

There’s a bar in NYC called “No Idea” which makes for an interesting conversation when your buds call you and ask where you’re hanging out tonight.

Where I grew up on Long Island, there was a hardware store called “HBH” that, although run-down and owned by a family of hillbillies, always seemed to have exactly what you were looking for. I swear - if for some reason you needed something totally obscure like a set of seals for a pump not distributed since 1973, one of the barefooted hillbillies would disappear into the back of the store and emerge 10 minutes later with whatever it was that you needed. Anyway, no one in town knew what HBH stood for, so everyone started calling it “Hill Billy Hardware” and that was the name by which they were known thereafter.

One of my friends called his lawn care business “Rocket Man Lawn Service,” which isn’t funny on its face, but when you consider that this particular friend earned his “Rocket Man” nickname from confiscating fireworks from kids in his former career as a Suffolk County cop, it was mildly funny.

That is a good one. The only Chinese Restaurant with a name even remotely as good as that one where I live is a place called Lee How Fook. I’m assuming that the people that own it are big fans of Warren Zevon …

I’ve posted these in other threads, but what the hay…

“Peoples Gas” a company supplying natural gas to homes.
We have “Fu King Chinese” restaurants around here, notice the North Florida spelling.
And the name of a Chinese place you don’t want to read too quickly as you drive by: “Hunan Wok” (is that letter in the middle ??? oh, it’s “N” … whew)

I’ve always liked a shop in Runnemede, NJ, that sells tobacco and lottery tickets. It’s called “Butts ‘n’ Bets.”

An American retro-crap shop in Hamamatsu, Japan: The Booby Whoop. Absolutely no idea where they got that. They also sold “key fucks” for 3000 yen.

Cafe Salive (Drool Cafe), also in Hamamatsu. Not far from Booby Whoop.

The Vulgar Cafe, in Nishi-Nippori, Tokyo. Good Curry.

Many more, but it’s too late for me to remember anything.

–sublight.

I was with my uncles last month, driving along some back roads near Hanoverton, Ohio. We passed a restaurant with a sign in front of it that read, “Diesel Fuel Restaurant”. My hunch is that that’s not the real name of the restaurant; just an unfortunate juxtaposition of their listing of the establishment’s wares. I think they should put another sign below the first one that reads, “Come in and get gas”.

Not a weird restaurant name, but the Emlenton Truck Plaza in Emlenton, Pennsylvania, used to have a sign visible from Interstate 80 that announced, “Home of America’s worst apple pie.” I think they took that down, which is too bad. It makes you remember the place, after all. I know I went there once for their apple pie. (Hate to let anyone down, but the pie’s not bad.)

The company who did my home inspection when I bought my first house last year was called “Sherlock Homes”. I hired them purely based on their name.

There was an Italian restaurant in Boston called “Same Old Place” and a pub called “The Pour House.”

Real beauty saloon name:

Curl-Up & Dye

In Fredericksburg, VA

There’s a chimney sweep service in the Northern Chicago suburbs called “Ashwipes”.

I’ve also seen a pub named “He’s Not Here”.

There’s a infant/toddler clothes store a few blocks from me called “Babies on Amsterdam,” as it’s right on Amsterdam Avenue. This is only mildly funny.

The sign is partially occluded by a tree. From most angles, the sign says “Rabies on Amsterdam.”

When I was working for a large company, I occasionally did stress (structural) analysis consulting work on the side. I can’t do that anymore because it would be a conflict of interest with my current employer. The name I came up with for my little company was Stress & Strain Technologies.

There’s a store on Clifton Blvd. in Lakewood, OH (in the artsy portion of town) that sells all kinds of novelties, decorations, toys, etc. It’s owned by a wonderful pair of gay men who sold me a way-cool ice-cream-cone lamp. The name of the store is Clifron Web. (I bet Eve thinks it’s funny, anyway.)

I got this in email this morning – A picture of a Sushi resteraunt sign that reads:

Fuk Mi - Sushi & Seafood Buffet